


crack; break

by guttersvoice



Category: Code Geass
Genre: M/M, end of s1, kallen is there but she doesnt do much so i figured id not tag her properly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guttersvoice/pseuds/guttersvoice
Summary: Suzaku, by comparison, is shaking all over, with what Lelouch recognises as fury and shame and something else he hesitates to give a name to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this months ago but apparently never uploaded it here   
> and now all my friends are getting into code geass finally so i remembered it existed

“I wanted to believe in you, so I kept denying it to myself,” he says, gaze cold as the sea, flicking from spot to spot on the floor.

Lelouch knows guilt when he sees it, but that’s not right - he’s the guilty party here. He should be the one unsteady with shame, unable to meet anyone’s gaze, but in this moment he is still, expression fixed into grim triumph. From this distance, neither of his witnesses should be able to see the minute trembling of his fingers. Suzaku, by comparison, is shaking all over, with what Lelouch recognises as fury and shame and something else he hesitates to give a name to.

He knows what it is, though, and the guilt curls cold through his veins. Something he could have avoided, but chose not to, for his own selfish desires.

A moment from just a few weeks before: a stolen kiss, their smiles pressed together. Dangerous words breathed against Suzaku’s neck, for once not an attempt to win him to the right side, no matter how much he tried to tell himself it was. Fingers curling into each other - had he known then, and tried to tell himself he was wrong?

But he’d said it back. In Japanese, so Lelouch had felt the weight of it.

He feels the weight of it now, even as he spreads his hands and offers a truce, repeats words he’d said to Suzaku more than once - but not those words. If they had been alone this would have been easier, but he has to placate both knights at once.

If they were alone, Lelouch might even be able to make himself cry.

He ignores the stinging behind his eyes.

If they were alone, Lelouch would beg. He would be Lelouch, and throw away Zero to open himself to Suzaku. He would tell the truth about all of it, all of his lies and all of the failures he still denied to himself, if it meant he could have Suzaku, and get Nunnally back. Would spread his legs and give all of himself in a way he’s never dared, if that was what it took. Suzaku could have all the soft and fragile parts of him that were left, if they were alone.

But Kallen is here, and he cannot let her see anything but Zero.

So he cracks, just a little, instead, and he loses, and in the Lancelot’s cockpit, when they’re alone, he allows that wild grin to spread across his face, feels it tug the corners of his mouth into something twisted and cruel.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, and he knows, without looking at the flash of anguished green or the way too-familiar lips set into a hard line, that Suzaku knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“It doesn’t matter,” Suzaku’s voice is tight and quiet, and he won’t look at Lelouch. His tone forms a bubble of something not unlike victorious glee in Lelouch’s chest. “You didn’t.”

He’s not sure if the bubble is going to become a giggle or a sob when it rises to his throat, but neither is acceptable. He swallows it down instead, tries to force that smile into something more serene, less broken.

“Yes I did,” he says, and delights in the way Suzaku’s entire body shakes against him.

For a fleeting instant, he thinks he might have a chance to talk, to win him over. Then a fistful of his own cape is shoved in his mouth, warm fingers brushing unintentionally against his lips, and the opportunity is lost. Three more words and he might have had him, but it’s too late now.

The next time he gets to see Suzaku’s face, it’s on a screen, and Lelouch doesn’t remember falling in love with him.


End file.
